Universally Monstrous - The Phantom of the Opera
by darnedchild
Summary: It was a well-known secret that New Scotland Yard was haunted. - It's Sherlolly Halloween. This year I'm playing around with short ficlets loosely based off the classic Universal Monsters. (AU)


**A/N** : I'll just start by admitting I'm taking a lot of creative license with the New Scotland Yard building. I could probably look up if the building has a basement but … lazy. So let's all just pretend it does for the sake of this story. We're visiting heavy AU land today; Molly does not work at Barts, she's a forensic pathologist at NYS and she's never met Sherlock Holmes.

 **Universally Monstrous**

 **The Phantom of the Opera**

It was a well-known secret that New Scotland Yard was haunted.

Or "haunted" if you talked to certain people.

The Phantom—as he had been christened by someone who obviously spent far too much time reading paranormal fiction and not enough doing their job—seemed to favour the basement level of the building.

Whispered tales of a rare disembodied voice offering biting criticism and unwanted advice routinely made the rounds through the locker room.

"He said it was criminal that I was allowed in the lab," Anderson had groused over a shared bag of crisps during an impromptu gossip session after a departmental meeting.

One of the lab techs rolled his eyes. "Yeah, well, I'm pretty sure the Phantom isn't the only one who thinks that. Have you talked to Donovan lately or are you two still fighting?"

Anderson ignored the other man. "I'm not kidding, Hooper. When I checked the shadows to find the owner of the voice, they were empty. The Phantom is real."

Molly might have scoffed if she hadn't heard the voice herself.

The first time she'd thought it was a prank, one of the other's playing a joke on the new hire.

She'd been sitting at her desk during her lunchbreak, working on the first draft of the fictional crime novel (with a hint of romance between the feisty pathologist and the gruff cop with a heart of gold and abs of steel) that had been screaming "Write me!" in her brain for the last few years.

Molly had been slogging away at a particularly frustrating scene, one that delved into the mind and motives of the murderer, when the need for something caffeinated and bag of crisps grew too great to ignore. She'd minimized her document and headed toward the cafeteria. When she'd returned twenty minutes later her manuscript was open on the laptop screen, front and centre, and someone had left a long and detailed paragraph of where she'd left off.

"What the hell?" She'd been extremely annoyed that one of her co-workers had invaded her privacy like that and was mentally preparing the bollocksing of the century when the Voice spoke.

"That's not how he'd think. Your killer."

Molly had jumped, "Who are you? Where are you?"

"Don't be dull," the Voice admonished her as if it—he—was disappointed in her response. "You know who I am, I hear you lot chattering on about me all the time."

She huffed. "We don't chatter." Molly was met with silence for several seconds. "Well, I don't, at any rate."

"True. You do tend to hold your tongue when the some of the others begin to wax poetic about the most ridiculous things." She'd thought the Voice had been coming from the left before, but now it was clearly coming from the right.

Molly turned a full circle to look for someplace an adult (for he definitely had the deep, smooth voice of a man) could hide. She even ducked to look under the desk.

"Your villain's thoughts are far too chaotic and disjointed for the methodical serial killer you've set him up as."

"How would you know?" Could the stories be true? Was there really a ghost haunting Forensics? "Is this what you did in a past life? Get into the minds of criminals? Did you work down here, or maybe as detective?"

She thought she heard him laugh, and the husky sound caused a sensation like the touch of warm fingers softly brushing up her spine. She shuddered as he spoke again, "Something like that."

"So, is this one of those 'unfinished business' things, or…"

Molly held her breath and waited but silence was her only answer.

Two weeks later she was sitting at her desk, transcribing her notes from the latest autopsy when she heard, "Excellent catch on the Marshall case."

"Thanks. I thought it was a long shot, but what could it hurt to run an extra test or two so-" Her body recognized his voice before her brain did. Her skin tingled and something at her core warmed even as she spun in her chair to search the room with her eyes.

Three days after that, she'd been working on her novel during another lunch break—she'd taken the Phantom's advice and completely reworked the scene with her villain's inner thoughts—when she realized she wasn't completely alone. Her hands stilled on the keyboard. "Hello."

Molly heard him draw in a startled breath somewhere behind her. "How did you know I was here?"

"You're not as stealthy as you think." She slowly turned, completely unsurprised to see that the room was empty. Still, she felt that he was nearby. "I noticed a . . . scent after your last two visits." It had been clean and masculine, not clouded with cologne or the musky bodywashes that were popular amongst the male staff. "And there was a creak, something shifted under your weight this time."

He was silent for so long she began to worry he might have left again. "Interesting." She got the feeling he was watching her, studying her.

"You, uh, you're not a ghost, are you?" Molly almost tripped over her words.

"Of course not. Didn't you know, ghosts don't exist." He seemed amused.

She heard another creak and her eyes darted around the room, hoping to pinpoint where the noise was coming from. "So you just lurk, then. For fun, or . . ."

"I observe." As if that explained anything. "Some of your co-workers are idiots. Most of them."

Molly opened her mouth to argue then shrugged. He wasn't exactly wrong. "Still, I'm pretty sure what you're doing isn't exactly legal. For a vast number of reasons."

He laughed again, and it made her shudder just like the last time. A good shudder. The kind that was going to keep her awake thinking the sort of things she shouldn't. "I've never been worried about legalities."

"Aren't you worried I'm going to run upstairs and report you?" she asked.

"Are you?" The Phantom's seemed to come from directly behind her, which was impossible as her desk was set against a wall. She didn't bother turning around as he continued to speak. "Would it make you feel better to know at least one Detective Inspector is aware of my secret, and has been for nearly as long as I've been 'haunting' the halls."

It did actually. "Do I know them?"

"Possibly. His name is Lestrade."

"Oh, I've worked with him!" He'd come looking for her six months before, requesting her assistance with a particularly brutal double homicide. "Wait, did you-?"

He hummed, a noncommittal answer if she'd ever heard one.

"Am I allowed you know your name? You obviously know mine and I can't keep calling you the Phantom like some 1920's horror movie." She bit her lip.

After a long moment, he answered. "It's Sherlock."

"Sherlock," Molly tested the word, rolled it around on her tongue like a decadent treat. She swallowed hard and lifted her chin. "So now that I know you're real, are you going to show yourself?"

Silence. He was gone. "Okay. I'll take that as a no."

Over the next few months she slowly stopped joining her co-workers in the cafeteria for lunch or the afternoon break, telling herself she was choosing to stay in her office to work on her novel.

That Sherlock had become a semi-regular visitor at those times had nothing to do with it.

Right?

She often found herself verbally working out plot points and dialogue, smiling when the disembodied Voice occasionally replied to offer suggestions or encouraged her to think through the moment with only a bit of gentle prodding and praise. Even better, as far as she was concerned, they'd begun to speak of other things. Her life outside of work, bits and pieces of his (although he still kept a tight lip on most everything), books they'd read (they were both voracious readers), all sorts of little things that had begun to add up.

"So this is going to be one of the really difficult bits for me to write." Molly leaned back in her chair and pushed away from her desk on the squeaky wheels so she could spin around in a lazy circle. They'd been talking for nearly half an hour. "There's been this building sexual tension between Brandon and Rachel almost from the moment the first met. Now they've just survived a near death experience, emotions are high, the attraction is there."

Sherlock didn't say anything and Molly sighed. "I know, it's a cliché but it just seems right at this point in their relationship. But I've never really done that. Well, I mean, I've done _that_ ; just not the passionate, all consuming kind of . . . that."

He still remained silent. She couldn't help but fidget. "It's just, it's been a long time and even then it was more of a 'let's scratch this itch' than a 'take me against the wall right this second' thing. God, I think my ex Tom would have hurt himself laughing if I even dared to suggest it. If anything it was boring and I just wanted to get it over with so I could see if there was anything good on the telly. And I have absolutely no idea why I'm telling you any of this."

"I'm not really sure why you're doing it, either. What is it you want from me, Molly?" He sounded almost as uncomfortable as she felt. Not for the first time, she wished she could see his face to better read his emotions.

"Well, you're . . . You've got that voice. And you're smart. And you have a wicked sense of humour. I know you hang around here most of the time, but surely you-you've . . . I can't imagine there would be a mad scramble for the remote with you. That is, with you and-and the person you were with. So, I was hoping you could help reel me in if I get a little too . . . unrealistic? With the scene?" That was it. She was going to go home and drown her embarrassment in a carton of cookies and cream ice cream and try to pretend she'd never started this conversation.

He sighed. "Molly, I don't know what you imagine I do when I'm not here, but I am absolutely positive it isn't whatever you think it is."

"What?"

"Fuck it," Sherlock sighed. The large shelving unit that was bolted to the wall slowly swung inward to reveal a dark doorway. She could just make out a tall figure standing in the shadows.

Molly got to her feet as he stepped into the room and she saw him clearly for the first time. He was tall and fit, dark but impeccably tailored clothes, a mop of soft looking curls, and a strange black mask that covered the left half of his face.

"Is this supposed to be a joke?" she asked. She'd referenced the old Phantom of the Opera movie before, did he take that as a challenge? Was he making fun of her?

"I wish it was." Sherlock lowered his head and reached up to carefully remove his mask. He took a deep breath before he lifted his face and turned toward her fully.

Whatever had happened to him had ruined half of his face. He was lucky he was still able to see out of his left eye. "How?"

"Acid. I'd barely begun working with Lestrade as a Consulting Detective—you wouldn't have heard of the term, I invented the position—and the abusive husband of one of my clients decided to get his revenge. It could have been worse. As you noticed, I was able to keep my eye and my mouth and vocal cords were virtually undamaged. Believe it or not, I was even more of a socially inept arsehole and my interest in relationships had been virtually non-existent before the incident. And then this happened." He gestured to his face. "You can see how off putting this is to another person. It was easier to seclude myself than deal with people every day."

Molly had questions. A lot of questions. "Okay, I get the wanting to stay away from other people thing, but how in the heck did you get a secret door in the basement of Scotland Yard?"

"Doors, plural. I have a contact in the government and a massive trust fund." He blinked at her. "Why haven't you run off or retched on your shoes? Why are you pretending this doesn't bother you?"

"Last week I had to do a post-mortem on a floater who had been in the Thames for several weeks. A disfiguring facial injury and healed scar tissue is nothing in comparison." She bit her lip and took a step closer. "Could I-Would it be all right if I-"

"Touch my face?" Sherlock asked at the same time Molly worked up the nerve to say, "Get a tour of your underground supervillain lair after my shift ends?"

They stared at each other for a long moment before he nodded. "I guess that would be acceptable. As long as no one saw you roaming the halls after you were supposed to be gone. As incompetent as most of the idiots upstairs can be, they are trained law enforcement officers."

Molly smiled. "One more question, and this one is super important. Can you get wi-fi down there?"


End file.
